Sweet Find on Black Friday

For the first time ever, I ventured out of my house on the morning of Black Friday. Unshowered and dressed mostly in what I wore to bed the night before, I loaded up my little brood and headed for Tulsa's mid-priced retail mecca: 71st St. and Memorial Drive.

Our first stop was Toys R Us, where the checkout line wrapped around the inside perimeter of the store. Though we managed to find a few things we liked enough to buy there, we didn't feel especially excited about them. We sure weren't looking forward to buying enough batteries to keep them flashing and sounding off until little man moves on to bigger and better things in, oh, three months.

Holly told me about Lundeby's Eco Baby a few months ago, and I have always wanted to have a look. I am so glad I finally did. My only regret is I didn't go there before I spent $70 on plastic toys at a non-local retail big-box.

I'll tell you what we bought. Just don't spill the beans to our baby and spoil the surprise, okay? We're pretty good at doing that ourselves without your help. We couldn't help but give this to the little guy right away:Little guy loves to chase this thing. I'm sure he'll really love it when, once he begins to walk, he realizes he can pull it behind him. We love it because it's not plastic and because it's a simple, classic toy. It's a pleasure to behold, and it makes this great clacking sound when it's pulled along.

Know how to tell if a toy will be a five-star hit? If your husband can't stop playing with or talking about it. Heck, I can hardly get Aaron to even look away from the darn thing. I can't talk trash, though, since I've taken it for a few spins down the hallway during naptime myself.

We also scored these:We could hardly get our baby to stop playing with these long enough for us to buy them. He loves to beat on things, and with these toys, his efforts are rewarded with "music." Mom and Dad are happy, too, since we don't have to hear the ever-loving ABC song every time he barely touches it, unlike some of the other toys he has. Plus, neither requires batteries.

Lundeby's is situated in a smart, easy-to-access little space at 3638 S. Peoria Ave. Park along the street in front or in the lot behind the store. Lundeby's owner Tiffany will chat you up as you browse organic cotton baby clothes, eco-friendly diapering, breastfeeding support goodies, and her extensive stock of toys. I noticed she called nearly each customer by name, and by the time we headed out the door, she pretty much knew our life story. She's likable, to say the least.

Though I wouldn't dub us as a green family, we do try to limit our consumption of everything from gasoline to food packaging to water. Even from that perspective, it's easy to appreciate a shop like Lundeby's. For me, it's about the thought and consideration behind green products, which generally produces a better design on the other end. Though I'm willing to pay for good design, I can't normally spring for everything I'm nutty about. Lundeby's delivered again: I was surprised I could get out of a Brookside boutique with an arm-full of stuff for less than $60.

If you have a baby on your Christmas list - especially if it's our baby - make sure to stop by Lundeby's. I dare you not to go there and accidentally spend an hour playing and chatting and cleansing your soul of the big-box shopping experience.

Turkey Day Light Trolling

Thanksgiving is here! As I sit here waiting for my country crust bread to rise and my herbed spaghetti squash to roast, I'd like you to help me rustle up some places to see some Christmas lights.

The first that comes to mind is the flurry of white lights at Utica Square, which comes on tonight at 6:30. The second is Rhema's larger-than-life light display, which went live yesterday.

We can't wait to swing our baby boy by both. The kid totally zones out when he sees lights, and though his current favorite are the track lights at Loops, I have a feeling Christmas lights will open an entirely new corner of his eager little mind.

Where do you go to gawk at Christmas lights?

A Frustrating Night at BOK Center

I received an interesting note from a reader yesterday about the Tuesday night Metallica concert at the BOK Center:

We arrived at 7 walking from McNellies ([we wanted to take the shuttle over to the BOK Center from there, but] we never saw a clear shuttle stop in front of the restaurant.) The show started at 7 with the opening act and we figured we’d miss a bit of them.

We get there and there is a line a mile long. TO GET IN. People with tickets got extra screwed because the line was even longer to get in. They were metal detecting everyone and you had to empty your pockets and get wanded. That’s fine but it was so slow and inefficient. They had teenagers running it. It wasn’t professional. They banned several items ( cameras, spiked jewelry) but they don’t tell you until you get to the front. They could have saved a bunch of time if they had people going through the line telling people the rulz. Fortunately, we didn’t have anything.

Anyway, it was FREEZING outside and we were in line to get in the door with tickets for over an hour with frequent harassment from drunk guys ( to be expected) but the police were just standing there doing hardly nothing ( well, they did arrest a drunk kid.)

Okay, so we are almost to the doors and the SPRINKLERS come on on us! We had to move fast!

Then, we get in and needed to pee. The men’s bathroom line was forever long…took my husband about 30 more minutes. Took me about 10 minutes to get through but they only had the front bathrooms open, ½ the stalls wouldn’t flush, no toilet paper or towels, no attendants or workers to be found. The bathrooms have two openings to it was all confusing as to who was next in line which really didn’t speed up the process, either.

Also mad that we were one of the first ones to order our tickets and got the furthest back seats. We were told they were best available but people were buying groups of tickets and getting better seats than us. In fact, where we sat, it was all sparse. I don’t understand how that happened. The seats weren’t bad though…I don’t think there is a bad seat but still the worst of the good seats.

Fortunately, Metallica didn’t come out until 9 so we didn’t miss a minute of them. Got there just in time. The no smoking rule really cut back on the smoke…. I could actually breathe! Last Metallica concert I went to, I got second hand high and coughed up some nasty crap for a week.

McNellies was great. They gave us a reservation and were very quick with everything. We could stay parked there all night, too.

Sounds to me like McNellies was the best part of this evening. Anyone else have these types of experiences with shows at the BOK?